GEORG PHILIPP

HARSDORFFER (1607-1658)  , German poet, was born at Nuremberg on the 1st of November 1607 . He studied law at Altdorf and Strassburg, and subsequently travelled through Holland, England, France and Italy . His knowledge of languages gained for him the appellation " the learned," though he was as little a learned man as he was a poet . As a member of the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft he was called der Spielende (the player) . Jointly with Johann Klaj (q.v.) he founded in 1644 at Nuremberg the order of the Pegnitzschafer, a literary society, and among the members thereof he was known by the name of Strephon . He died at Nuremberg on the 22nd of September 1658 . His writings in German and Latin fill fifty volumes, and a selection of his poems, interesting mostly for their form, is to be found in Miller's Bibliothek deutscher Dichter des 17ten Jahrhunderls, vol. ix . (Leipzig, 1826) . His life was written by Widmann (Altdorf, 1707) . See also Tittmann, Die Nurnberger Dichterschule (Gottingen, 1847) ; Hodermann, Eine vornehme Gesellschaft, nach Harsdorffers " Gesprachspielen" (Paderborn, 1890); T . Bischoff, " Georg Philipp Harsdorffer " in the Festschrift zur 25ojahrigen Jubelfeier des Pegnesischen Blumenordens (Nuremberg, 1894) ; and Krapp, Die asthetischen Tendenzen Harsdorffers (Berlin, 1904) .